Adding a long text entry box to Rise / Storyline

I have again tried to attack this problem in a few different ways. I need to:

• Attach multiple text entries in a course
• Have entering the text(s) be able to complete the activity so that you can use the 'Continue after completing the activity above' feature.

I tried taking Snorre's example (thanks!) and modifying it to work with whichever SCORM version you publish Rise to, but discovered there really isn't anywhere to store the responses - in Scorm 1.2 the user comment field is append only. So I implemented a bit of detection to see if SCORM 2004 is present and if not, to use sessionStorage (which persists in the browser until the user closes the tab). Not a fantastic solution, and leaves me wishing for something native in Rise. It *might* be compatible with AICC, but I have no harness to test it in.

I've attached two storyline files.

1. 'Dynamic User Input using Scorm' is based on Snorre Rubin's idea. It uses javascript to modify the parent to hide the storyline file and implement a textarea that saves when it the focus moves out of the textarea. It has feedback showing that the value has been saved, and optionally has the ability to add question text, placeholder text, and completes the activity when it saves successfully. It only supports one textarea at a time.
   1. Pros: It looks better in the published Rise course, as it uses the 'Text Block' styles to maintain the existing look of text, and the font / background / padding is maintained properly. It will save in the SCORM user comments field in 2004
   2. Cons: It does NOT work in any Preview or Review functionality, as Articulate do not run javascript in those environments. You have to export it and host it on a LMS or testing harness. You have to edit Storyline variables to set it up.
2. 'Two text entries' is my stab at allowing multiple text inputs. My requirement was that some responses allowed more than one text entry before it would be saved/completed, so I tried to make a generic storyline file that's easy to modify if there is only a single entry.
   1. Pros: It works in the editor, preview and review tools. It can support 1 or more text entries.
   2. Cons: The text renders using Storylines engine, not Rise's engine, so fonts / sizes and such as less predictable. The data is only saved to sessionStorage, which is lost when the tab hosting the course is closed. When using 'Modern' skin, you don't have a scrollbar on the text entries (it's a bug). The triggers are tricky - you have to edit a Tally condition to match the number of entries.

I had thought about implementing some other features but have run out of time/energy this round:

• Using text compression to store the inputs to allow more data to be stored without hitting limits (and Rise has that handy lzwcompress library sitting there which it uses internally for suspend data)
• Posting/Retrieving the data to an external storage endpoint
• Posting/Retrieving the data using xAPI calls

I hope this helps someone out in the future. I also hope that Articulate officially implement a Text question type to save these flimsy solutions.